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Hi all!
I've begun an armor commission for Lucksy31. He got a set of the great new FP v.3 armor, and I'll be doing it in a ROTJ paint scheme.
I got the armor yesterday afternoon, and today I've started trimming the parts. I'm using a sanding drum on my Dremel to remove most of the "rough trimmed" excess plastic. Once I've done this to all the parts (12 pieces in all), I'll go back with some sandpaper and really smooth the edges.
Just a couple quick shots to show how much material I'm removing. I'm leaving a bit around the rolled edges of the parts.

Here are the 2 chest plates.

The shoulders.

Knees.

The parts are really sturdy, and they're a lot curvier than other sets I've worked on!
It's a lot of tedious work trimming the parts, and I've already lost count of how many times I've said "Ow!" when a hot piece of styrene has landed on my hand! Still lots more parts to trim, so probably no more updates till I start priming and painting.

Arnold, I trimmed everything with the drum sander attachment.
To me, even though there was still some extra material around the edges, it wasn't enough to justify using the cutting disk. Besides, there weren't that many straight runs where the cutting disk would have been that useful. Lots of curves and corners.
Now that everything has been trimmed with the Dremel, I'll go back with some sandpaper and smooth the edges.

OK, the last of the cutting is done. I talked to Scott to find out which chest light set he was going to use, and he gave me the measurements for the set.
FP's armor comes with some depressions where the chest lights should go, but they're pretty shallow, which means they can be easily customized depending on which lights you're going to put in. Very nice feature!

Using the measurements Scott gave me, I marked the openings with painters tape, so when I drilled and filed, I'd have a nice guideline to use.

I chucked a small drill bit into my Dremel and drilled the 2 slots, being careful to stay inside my tape lines. Once I had drilled a series of holes around the edges, I slowly dragged the drill bit sideways to completely clear the openings.

To complete the slots, I used some small files to smooth the edges. So here are the openings.

FP also included a small piece of 'smoked' plastic for this section. I'm holding it in place here.

So now, I'll give all the parts a light pass with some very fine grit sandpaper to make sure the primer has some "tooth." The parts as molded are very smooth, and I want to make sure I won't have any problems with paint adhesion.
The next time I post pics, the parts will actually be not-white anymore!

I am curious tho ... Who's chest lights are going in that hole ? If you want to PM it to me that's cool. But there may be a wee issue there. The impressions, or "guides" were based on Brak's Buddy's chest light measurements for accuracy. (Approximately a millimeter or so smaller for customizing).

It appears that the slots, or actually the lights that the slots were cut for, may be a little bit big. Unless it;s the camera perspective or focal length. I'm certainly not trying to nit pick anything, but if there is a discrepancy or incompatibility there, the armor won't look the way it was intended, and it may not be noticeable until later when you've already went through all the work, and someone may not be happy about it. Just trying to help

If you find that there is an issue, let me know and I'd be happy to send out a replacement plate to you for your customer.

Chris and Scott, thanks!
I noticed that the slot measurements were a smidge larger than the pre-formed impressions in the chest plate, but I know that not all chest light makers make their setups exactly the same size. That's why I requested the measurements from Scott before I started doing any cutting.

Whew! Got a lot done. All the pieces are base-coated. I began with some primer, and wanted to try that Krylon Fusion. I've heard it's really great on plastics, so I picked up a can in a neutral gray/beige. . . sort of a putty color. I sprayed all the parts and let them dry according to the label. It worked great! Very smooth coverage, and after only about an hour and a half, I was spraying on the color coats.
I used Floquil Reefer Yellow for the shoulders and knees, giving them a couple of light coats. For the rest of the body armor, I used Floquil US Medium Green. Again, I gave it a couple of light coats rather than trying to get full coverage the first time around. I'm pretty impatient when it comes to spraying, and I really have to force myself to let things dry fully before laying down 2nd or 3rd coats!
But I perservered, and after the 2nd coat, everything looked nice and even.

I've begun painting the damage on a couple of the pieces already. Here's a look at the knees. It's already dark here, and these pics were taken under lamp light in my living room. Once everything gets closer to completion, I'll try to get some better pics under natural light.

(NOTE: the Reefer Yellow photographs pretty strangely. . . I haven't done any pastel weathering at this point. Even though it may look a little uneven, it's straight R. Yellow.)

Here's the first piece of body armor I started; the abdomen plate. I use the same 'reverse tracing' method on the armor as I did on my helmet. It really helps to position everything correctly. Again, the pic is kinda dark. . . sorry.

So now, I'll continue to work the damage on the chest, collar, and the rest of the body armor. I'm waiting for some decals to arrive from Scott, so for now I'll hold off on the right chest plate and the left shoulder bell, but I have lots of other pieces to work on in the meantime!

Hope everyone has a happy, safe New Year and I'll be back with more in 2008!!

Well, I was pretty busy this (long) weekend, so didn't have time to take pics as I went. I tried to use the time as productively as I could, working on several of the armor pieces. Every day my wife kept saying, "Are you done painting for today?" Which in wife-speak means, "Get off the computer! I want to use it!"

So anyway, here's where Scott's armor stands as of this morning. I got some better shots outside on my balcony, so I'll start with the ab plate again. I still have to size those 3 holes a little better. I drilled them out to make sure I had a good guide while painting the damage.

Here are a couple of angles of the kidney armor.

This is the left chest plate.

Here's the cod piece. I always like painting that huge dent in the middle. . . I don't care what this armor is made from, that had to hurt!

The collar plate.

At this point, I've also done the small scuffs and pastel weathering on the knees. I just sprayed them with some Dullcoat, so they're drying as I type. I've also done the center chest diamond, and epoxied in the silver insert that FP included.

Still to do: right chest plate, back plate, 2 shoulders. So it's getting there!
I also will go back and black mist all the green pieces once they're all painted, and add the very fine scratches, and the lighter green "gun butt scratches" on the right side of the ab plate (and other small locations).

i'm really concerned about those slots... i used to have the tk409 lights, and that just doesn't look right...

my guess is that the measurement is the full height of the "block" for lack of a better term, rather than the height of the numbers...

if you look at that, the proportions seem about right to what you've cut out (the tk409 is the one that's all on one board, the shackman is the 2 part system)

but the actual *numbers* on the 409 board are not that big... it's easier to see on the shackman, but there's a lot of negative space around it. afaik, the slot should be cut to the measure of the NUMBERS, not the blocks they are on.

it wouldn't be a big deal to fill it back in with some scrap plastic and bondo, but the piece would need a repaint (or at least touchups). so if that's going to happen, now would be the time, rather than when it's off to its new home.

Hmm. . . TK7602, I see what you're saying, but at this point, I'll probably have to send the armor to Scott and have him fit the lights in place and see how they look.
If there's a problem with the cutout at that time, I'll definitely work with him to take care of it.

Eric,
TK7602 is correct. The dimensions I gave you were for the entire "block" and NOT the length up to the actual LED number. I actually never knew the "blocks" didn't protrude through the armor. Is that true?? All that you're supposed to see through the bottom slot are the LED numbers?? and NOT the edges of the blocks?? DAMN!!! Should I contact FP for a replacement, or wait to see what it looks like?? Whatever you think is OK by me.
-Scott
P.S. those progress pics are AWESOME!!!

superjedi said:

Hmm. . . TK7602, I see what you're saying, but at this point, I'll probably have to send the armor to Scott and have him fit the lights in place and see how they look.
If there's a problem with the cutout at that time, I'll definitely work with him to take care of it.

Scott,
I would say wait till you recieve it and see how it looks.
If I'm understanding the pic of those TK 409 lights, the front face of the blocks/lights should be sort of flush with the inside surface of the armor piece. They shouldn't actually fit into the slots to be flush with the front (outer) surface of the armor.
Does that make sense?

If it needs to be redone, of course I'll redo it.
Glad you're liking the progress so far! Today I also did the lower part of the right chest plate. Just waiting for the decals to finish up the upper part of that plate plus the shoulders.